Sunday, December 14, 2014

Perfect LOVE casts out fear

Just this week during my favorite time in the morning, I felt the prompting of God. Maybe it was timing, maybe it was where my heart was at that moment, but either way I was obedient. Trusting God in the moment of obedience is difficult. Like anxious, what if this turns out badly, what if it turns out to be great... And the what ifs continued. I seem to trust God to a point. I will trust him with this but only so far. I find myself doing the same in my other relationships. I know where that stems from and it is a complete fight within myself to completely surrender. To allow someone else to take care of the rest. That's difficult for me to do. I tried that, we all have, trusted someone completely & then they wrecked it all. Destroyed the trust you graciously gave, so you withdrawal, you hide. You say things, "I won't ever let that happen again, I will only allow them to get this close". I know it's a form of misguided control thinking I can keep this close enough so I want get hurt again. It's the same thing that Eve wrestled with in the garden. The serpent placed doubt, she took the bait, she did not trust the heart of God, and just knew He was holding out on her. It's in our DNA. On the fallen Eve spectrum we women are either dominant/controlling, mousy/desolate, or some weird combination of both. How do we overcome this? TRUST.  We do what it is we know we are supposed too regardless of how risky, and leave the results to God. Sounds simple right? At least it looks easy on paper. I know it is much harder. I think it is like taking baby steps, we work hard to trust, we fall down, and we keep trying.

The good news is that as much as we try to arrange for a good life and protect ourselves from pain, our strategies will not work. Oh, they may work for awhile but not for long and they never give us the results we desire. I know after my obedience test this week, it turned out just fine. I was obedient, I did what I know God wanted me too, and I trust Him with the rest. The only TRUE safe place for our hearts is in God. God knows why we do the things we do. And He has mercy on us. He understands our deep fear and longs to replace it with His love. (Perfect love casts out fear). 

So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most. (‭Hebrews‬ ‭4‬:‭14-16‬ NLT)

May we ask Jesus to continue to free us from our self-protective & fallen strategies. May He come & heal our places of deep fear where we don't know yet or believe that we are deeply loved and wanted. 

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